Opinion Contributor

The bubble candidate

“What happened to the governor bubble?” my 78-year-old mom asked me, a hint of sadness in her voice, on a trip through the airport security lines this year after I was term-limited from office. “Where are the people to help us through TSA?”

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For two terms I lived in a protective bubble, like most governors. Governors have 24-hour security, we are driven everywhere, we speed through special lines at the airport. Someone does our cooking, shopping, gardening. Our calls are screened, our mail is answered for us, every detail taken care of.

If governors so choose, it would be easy avoid the unpleasantness of life. Of course, most governors wouldn’t be in office very long if they didn’t make specific, concerted efforts to connect with people’s struggles. Experiencing the unfiltered pain of one’s citizens is, I believe, the most important work a governor must do — the foundation for action.

Logistically, the bubble life is probably not much different for the uber-wealthy. They hire people to take care of their lives — their laundry and lawns, their cars and bills. They don’t worry about the meals or the rent or how to pay for their health care. They have drivers and schedulers — an army of people at their beck and call. And they have private planes so they don’t have to mess with public airports at all.

What they don’t have, unless they really try, is contact with the messiness of life. They don’t eat unplanned meals at the local ribs joint near the factory, they don’t kneel in a church in the inner city. They don’t know the moral agony of filing for unemployment, or what it’s like to choose between paying for a child’s field trip or reducing the balance on their 21 percent a month credit card.

In one notorious incident in 1994, when he was running for Senate, Mitt Romney visited a Boston homeless shelter for veterans. When the director told him that the shelter’s biggest problem was obtaining milk for the vets, Romney joked, “Well, maybe you can teach the vets to milk cows!” Reporters overheard this weird and insensitive joke, and when the story hit the papers Romney made amends by generously personally donating milk to the shelter. But if he hadn’t seen the problem (and been caught making a gaffe about it), he would not have been aware of the need, nor acted to solve it.

Michelle had to invent his poorness for him by claiming she would look at the road through the hole in the floor of poor Harvard-grad working lawyer Barack's car when they were dating. Guess he spent a little too much on blow(by his admission in his second autobiography he purchased 'blow' and 'reefer' while in college) and not enough on a decent used car once he got a job.

Unemployment numbers and deaths of Americans in foreign lands are simply "bumps in the road" for him. He could care less about any individual.

Obama had his chance and squandered it. We need real leadership now and not some guy going on talk shows and making fun of special needs children or calling himself "eye candy".

Shutup people. This is hard! Don't make it harder. You should be glad Romney has decided to grace your pathetic existence by offering to be your President. You thankless imbeciles should be grateful and just let us move into the White house.#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }

Ken Smith, the former director of the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, also came on Beck's show to discuss what Buzzfeed called "a cringe worthy moment in 1994."

During the visit to the shelter, Smith said Romney first looked at the shelter's books for about 45 minutes and then took a tour of the facility. At the end of the tour, Romney asked what Smith's biggest problem was. Smith told him the shelter had problems paying for milk, and Romney replied, "Well Ken, maybe you can teach the vets to milk cows."

The next day, Smith said, the newspapers were killing him for the remark, and Romney called Smith to apologize. The following day, the milkman showed up, offloaded his milk and gave Smith a bill that was half of its normal . The same things happened for a month, two months, three months, and then for a full two years, Smith said. Finally, on the day the milkman was to retire, he told Smith that Romney had been paying for the milk.

"Romney's generosity has helped tens of thousands of veterans who are homeless, who have been through this facility, with nourishment," Smith said. "The milk cartons said the name of the milk company, it didn't say, 'donated by Mitt Romney.'"

http://www.deseretnews....

And somehow you Repubs see that as a plus? What are you thinking? Paying half of a milk bill for 2 years after insensitive remarks and bad press?

Kind of like Mitt saying he gave away his Dad's inheritance. Uh, yeah, only 15 years or so ago when he had hundreds of millions did he give away your inheritance to build a Mormon building in his name.

As usual, the RW trolls got the first two responses to this article...Why does that always happen? Are they paid to sit and wait for new Politico articles to appear and deposit their venom?

Anyway, this was an excellent article. I keep saying "Romney just can't help himself from making these gaffes" and Gov Granholm explains it perfectly. He has been raised in a bubble and doesn't even realize it. Why doesn't he just open a window?

"During the visit to the shelter, Smith said Romney first looked at the shelter's books for about 45 minutes and then took a tour of the facility. At the end of the tour, Romney asked what Smith's biggest problem was."

IS THIS THE SAME SHELTER MICHELLE OBAMA WORE THE $900 SNEAKERS TO SERVE FOOD HOMELESS PEOPLE.

Oblamehimforitall is being VERY MEAN when he says that when Mitt said "Let the Auto Industry Go Bankrupt" that Mitt meant he wanted to let the auto industry go bankrupt! That is taking Mitt out of context and clearly personal attack rather than dealing with the issue. Mitt meant of course that someone should step in and save the auto industry, just not the Government, and certainly not Bain. Maybe the Chinese or the Germans, but NOT THE US GOVERNMENT as that would be SOCIALISM! Maybe the Italians or something.

But just like when Mitt said that "There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.." Oblamehimforitall is being MEAN and NASTY to imply that Mitt is saying that 47% are victims who believe they are entitled to health care and food - of course that is not what Mitt MEANT to say.

And then Oblamehimforitall tries to weasel out of his own quotes, like when he claims that he meant that small business owners didn't build the hiways - it was obvious from his statement that "you didn't build that" that Oblamehimforitall was REALLY SAYING he EATS DOGS while praying to Mecca and plays golf while cackling with his Kenyan relatives about how a Kenyan could become PRESIDENT! That is what he does and its clear that is what he meant!

Oblamehimforitall by saying mean things about MItt is making Ann very upset - she has already said clearly that she has given YOU PEOPLE enough - stop being nasty to Mitt, stop repeating bad things he said as if he meant to say them, stop twisting his MARVELOUS words all around and confusing him, and let him be president so he can FIX EVERYTHING and CREATE JOBS!

No matter what Mitt says, he is a NICE MAN and he will do the things you LIKE and he will not do the things you don't LIKE - but only if you let him be president - otherwise you will have Oblamehimforitall and that will be the first step into 1000 YEARS OF DARKNESS!

Mitt Romney doesn't want to know about the 47% or 99%. It was revealed tonight that his bubble has some intentionality to it. He has been selecting his own crowds. During the Hispanic tv interview he demanded that he import his audience and refused to use the student audience from Miami. He has imported other audiences as well.

Who could more represent a mollycoddled-out-of-touch American than Mr affirmative action himself... Obama.

At every juncture of his life he was shoved to the front of the class, or given the photo-op position of spokesperson for this or that, even though his soaring words were underpinned with nonsense and inexperience - having spent no time what-so-ever in the real world of capitalism and competitive struggle.

I'm a business man, but I recognize Romney as a better business man who knows how free markets work at the boardroom level and internationally .

Obama doesn't even know there are two sides to a business ledger. Tax payer money has always just shown-up in his life... cause he speaks well and has that perfect crease in his pants, I guess.

Oh look the failed miserably ex Gov now condemned to the Al Gore network that no one watches for being incompetent.. Crawl back into your hole Jennie, no one cares what a loser has to say.

And in the very definition of a sycophant is you, nothing epitomizes living in a bubble like the clown that is President, or pretending to be one. From an elite prep school to the Ivy League (yep a pot smoking, average student at best somehow got into the Ivies) to Chicago, 143 days in the Senate after voting present over 150 times and bam you are President without achieving anything in life..

And now we are seeing the results first hand for putting this moron in the White House.

Granholm- a certified expert in destroying Michigan and a pretty good liar- poor coke snorting Obama went to a fancy private school in Hawaii- he and Michelle both went to big money colleges and both worked for big law firms. Michelle left her no-show Hospital job making over $300,000 a year- Grannyholm- how much did you Biden and Barak give to charity??

I can't tell if the idiots in the partisan press just have no contact with reality and actually belive the lies they're spewing, or if they know they're lying but believe that the people are too stupid to realize it.

No one could listen to the long list of charitable actions that Romeny has taken and not understand that this guy has a firm grasp on what the rest of us are going through. And these charitable actions were all taken without the cameras rolling. He did them because he felt empathy for his fellow man.

What has Obama ever done for anyone that involved his own money or his own time - unless the press was standing by to show everyone what a swell guy he was?

I think the partisan press has been lying to the people for so long that they have begun to confuse their lies with reality. I don't think that mentally they exist in the real world anymore - with them it's all a fantasy world where socialism really works, where high unemployment rates don't really matter, where all money comes from the government, and the people really believe the crap they report.